


To Take Your Hand

by song_of_orpheus



Series: Orpheus does Les Mis Ladies' Week 2018 [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: And racism, Dancing, F/F, Les Mis Ladies Week 2018, That's amazing, cute dancing lesbians, mild mentions of homophobia, there's an actual ship tag for these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 15:24:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15633441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/song_of_orpheus/pseuds/song_of_orpheus
Summary: Day Two of Les Mis Ladies' Week 2018.Prompt: Dancing1970s. Baptistine Myriel helps her brother run a church for those society leaves behind - including herself. Magloire applies to be their housekeeper. The flat is small and cramped, but the radio plays beautifully and there's a love to be found while dancing.





	To Take Your Hand

The first time the lovers of the attic church met, Baptistine Myriel was dancing.

 

Mlle Magloire stood in the doorway of the flat, breath juttering from her lips like a cliff edge and suitcase round-bellied at her heels. Sniffing and peering into the warm thick darkness, she tried not to calm the crimson quickly thrushing through her round cheeks.

 

The other woman stood in the kitchen, unaware that the door had opened, while the orange city lights spun her limbs like dark gold. It was night-time. She was beautiful. The next moment caught a spin on the belly of the radio sax, and it sent her ebony braids feathering over her shoulders all at once.

 

Magloire could only think the word _serenity._

 

Then she coughed against her palm, pressed for a moment at the sharpness of her collar, and stepped inside. The door had been unlocked, after all. That was foolish, she thought, but it wasn’t as if she could raise any anger against the woman dancing by the window. Her suitcase stuttered at the floor, tags still flapping.

 

“I’m sorry I’m late, madame,” she called out lowly, voice glittering like coal. “The trains were delayed because of some strike – you know how it is – and-”

 

The woman in the kitchen turned around. Her eyes were dark and smudged with a heady smile. She was tall and Black and thin, her delicate skirts washing around her feet like dream-shadows. The feet themselves were bare, Magloire noticed. They must’ve been around the same age – their forties, back then.

 

The dancer raised her large soft eyes to hers, and nodded in silent greeting.

 

“This _is_ the home of the Bishop, I hope? I wrote asking about the housekeeper position a week ago.”

 

He wasn’t really a Bishop, of course. Someone like him – or someone like Magloire – would never be able to do that. He had the wrong kind of love and the wrong colour skin for the churches of most, but in this small city in the shuddering backglances of France he and his sister – the dancer – had made something. They were known for their guidance for all, but the youths of colour and the queer youths most of all.

 

Magloire knew moving away from everything she’d been couldn’t possibly hurt, and the hope of it hardened the clay of her heart. Strength. Her mother had brought that feeling with her all the way across oceans, then dropped it at Magloire’s feet and turned away at the word _love._

 

When the sister spoke it seemed her voice was made of spider silk, thin enough to tear with a breath. Impossibly sweet. “Yes, of course. You’re the new aide?” She gave a smile that was completely un-fragile. “I’m the one they call Baptistine Myriel, the Bishop’s sister.”

 

Myriel showed her the rooms, her brother, the work to be done, the kitchen chairs, and every dream the small flat contained. By the end of the introductions, as night pressed itself tight against the windows for comfort, Magloire was exhausted. They were by what was now her bed, and the Baptistine was laying out towels, guiding her to the sheets with a terrible gentleness. The ceiling lights were off again, and they swam through the thin amber to see each other.

 

“Goodnight, Mlle Magloire,” the Baptistine breathed with a half-smile behind her eyes, then pressed a kiss into her pale cheek before leaving. It hung there, its pale lavender dream melting against crimson. Someone like her.

 

And that kiss was all it took.

 

 

 

Later – whether by weeks or months or years, it didn’t matter – Magloire realised she loved to watch Myriel dancing. She was always a beautiful woman, and one grapeskin-tender and kind and serene and hung with Godliness, but in dance she had something of the divine. Magloire kept her old rosaries polished to starlight and was not prone to fancy, but _divine_ was all she could think or feel at the sight, simple and bare.

 

The Baptistine had fine ankles, and they spun like sewing needles in the morning. Magloire was busy pushing breakfast into life. The radio spat and hissed and trembled with a rich jazz, the music something thrumming, familiar and pure in the ear.

 

Setting the coffee on the table, she grumbled an announcement. Myriel scratched the music out of the air a half-breath later.

 

She was always prompt, at least, even if a dreamer.

 

“Thank you, _ma ch_ _ère_ Magloire. We owe you a debt,” Myriel hummed, and sat down at the table slowly. They each broke of a little of the baguette and Magloire poured the coffee into bowls before sitting herself, a little less gracefully and a little more out of breath. She needed a new inhaler, really, but there was always so much to be done to look after the flat and the church by the river and the neighbours.

 

“Where’s your brother?” she frowned, with a cluck of her tongue. “In trouble again? I told him to be more careful. Folk ain’t nice to those like us, and he knows as well as I do.”

 

Myriel gave a short breath that might’ve been a laugh on someone less timid. “He’s serving our people, Magloire. You know they need him.”

 

“I need him _here._ For breakfast,” she scoffed. “He not one of the _people_ anyway, mademoiselle?”

 

A real laugh, thick and delicious. Magloire has the impulse to take her hand, kiss it, kiss her throat where it thrummed with laughter.

 

“Perhaps he’s _not_ a person. Perhaps he’s a spirit, returned to guide us.” Myriel’s thin eyebrows curled playfully above the rim of her coffee bowl.

 

“A guiding spirit should know not to waste my time,” she huffed, and pointed the end of the baguette at the Bishop’s empty chair. “Or better yet, learn to do his own laundry.”

 

Something about her face must’ve humoured the Baptistine, or perhaps scared her, because she smiled at her finished breakfast, then stood quickly and took Magloire’s coat from the back of her chair. Pulling the collar tight around her neck, she gave a moonlike grin and ran to the door.

 

“I’ll go visit the church, see if he’s there. Don’t worry about my brother,” she called, cheeks pinched with a tight smile. “This is such a sweet coat, you realise?”

 

“Yes?” The two women caught each other’s eyes for a moment, then Myriel bowed her head and stepped through the door, bright air catching at her silhouette.

 

“I’ll see you later, my dear. I love you.”

 

And something in Magloire’s very nerves splintered away, breathless. Incense imprinted itself onto the  contours of her heart. Thick blood thinned itself to paper in her cheeks. Blushing.

 

“Yes.”

 

 

 

Finally, it was a Sunday afternoon, and Magloire set down the broom like Atlas unburned when Myriel took her hand.

 

The soul vanished from her throat. Her hands – sturdy worker’s hands, carved in clay for strength and power – trembled. The Baptistine was gentle enough to weep the sun into shining, but this? It was almost too much to bear, but none of Magloire was enough to prevent her touch, her sweetness.

 

“Dance with me, mademoiselle,” she asked, face plain and steady as ever.

 

Magloire agreed. That was all that was to be done, all that they needed. Their existence was lavender-coloured when she kissed Myriel, and the radio music juttered along to every kiss after that. A little later, it sang in the church on their wedding night. They danced alone and unburdened for a moment, and it seemed the most beautiful thing in the world was one hand in another.


End file.
